A stray bullet from a neighborhood shootout flew into a high school in northwest Washington, D.C., and grazed a female student’s head Friday, according to the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).
MPD officers responded at around 9:54 a.m. to a distress call from Dunbar High School and found a 17-year-old girl “with a minor graze injury,” Assistant Chief Leslie Parsons told reporters. The victim was taken to the hospital and her family was with her, he said.
“She is totally fine and is expected to make a full recovery,” he said.
The bullet appeared to have come from a shootout in the 1200 block of Kirby Street NW as a vehicle going the wrong way drove halfway into the block. Several gunfire rounds pierced through glass windows into the school, according to Parsons. The neighborhood is about 0.1 miles from the school.
“The motive remains unknown,” Parsons added.
People were at the scene of the shootout, and Parsons requested for such people to volunteer information regarding the shootout. Detectives would remain in the area investigating the incident.
“We are still in the preliminary stages of this investigation,” Parsons added.
The neighborhood where the shootout occurred appeared to have a history of suspected criminal incidents.
“This neighborhood has come along way…Our officers are always out here in the area, always visible, so I think our officers do a good job trying to work with the community,” Parsons said.
The school went into lockdown at the time of the press conference. (RELATED: Video Shows School Brawl That Allegedly Led To Gunshot, Five Injured Off-Campus)
Chief Smith and Assistant Chief Parsons give an update on the shooting near Dunbar High School this morning. pic.twitter.com/NxoQNEqHMX
— DC Police Department (@DCPoliceDept) May 3, 2024
“Even though our students have been on lockdown, I want everyone to know that our students are secure and they are safe,” MPD Chief Pamela Smith told reporters.
The lockdown would be brief and the school would dismiss early, Parsons added.
However, the school system opted to keep the school running, with all after-school activities indoors, while giving parents who wished to withdraw their children early for the day were permitted to do so, the Washington Post reported. The school reportedly provided mental health aid to the students.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser reportedly visited the school.
A resident, Kerry Burgott, who had just returned home from walking her dog at the time of what she called “loud, continuous automatic gunfire,” told the Washington Post, “I could’ve been shot.”
Sixty-five-year-old Pastor H. Lionel Edmonds of Mount Lebanon Baptist Church, near the scene of the shootout, told the outlet that crime in the neighborhood was “an emergency. It has to be seen as that, a crisis.”
The D.C. itself is burdened by rising crime.